‘I Put the Gun Down. Then I Prayed’: Dolly Parton Reveals ‘God’ Moment That Stopped Her From Possibly Committing Suicide

Legendary singer Dolly Parton recalls a time in her life when she was profoundly depressed — so despondent, in fact, that she once picked up a gun and contemplated suicide.

It’s a story that she told in a new book about her life titled, “Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton.”

The 71-year-old singer said that she was having a tough time in the 1980s and was very depressed after a failed “affair of the heart” despite her marriage to longtime husband Carl Dean, the Christian Post reported.

“I was sitting upstairs in my bedroom one afternoon when I noticed in the night stand drawer my gun that I keep for burglars. I looked at it a long time,” Parton explained. “Then, just as I picked it up, just to hold it and look at it for a moment our little dog, Popeye, came running up the stairs. The tap-tap-tap of his paws jolted me back to reality.”

She continued, “I suddenly froze. I put the gun down. Then I prayed. I kinda believe Popeye was a spiritual messenger from God.”

While Parton said she doesn’t think she would have killed herself, she “can’t say for sure.” And with all that said, the singer now understands what goes through peoples’ minds in their deepest and darkest moments of pain and suffering.

“Now that I’ve gone through that terrible moment, I can certainly understand the possibilities even for someone solid like me if the pain gets bad enough,” she said.

Parton told CBN News last year that her faith is incredibly important to her, recalling her childhood memories singing in her grandpa’s church (he was a pastor).

“I knew that through God all things were possible. I grew up with those things that we just heard all the time. My grandfather was a really good preacher,” she told the outlet. “People say, ‘Well, I am surprised that you talk about your faith,’ and I say, ‘Why not? That’s who I am. That’s what keeps me going.'”